Screening and understanding adolescents with money worries via a web-based stress check: A latent class analysis

This study investigates patterns of stress responses (SR), stressors, and social support (SS) among high school students using a dataset from a web-based stress check system, aiming to identify students experiencing high stress or money worries.

After obtaining informed consent from both students and their parents, high school students were assessed using the Public Health Research Foundation-Type Stress Inventory and additional questions to screen for money worries. Latent class analysis was used to identify stress patterns, and multinomial logistic regression was applied to explore risk factors.

Among all the students (n = 6894), five latent classes were identified: "high SR & low SS" (17.8%), "high SR & SS" (14.2%), "moderate SR" (29.8%), "low SR & SS" (11.8%), and "minimal SR" (26.4%). Students with money worries (n = 630) were 3.78 times more likely to be in the "high SR & low SS" class compared to the "minimal SR" class (odds ratio [OR] = 3.78, p < 0.001). Further analysis revealed that students with money worries could be divided into three groups: "low SR" (40.5%), "moderate SR" (28.4%), and "high SR" (31.1%). The low SR group had high SS, while the moderate and high SR groups reported lower SS.

Our findings suggest that money worries may be linked to higher stress levels among students. A web-based child stress check could be a valuable tool for identifying students at risk of mental health issues and money worries. Further research is necessary to explore stress-check systems for adolescents.